Growing Paynes - It Begins

So there I was, minding my own business, sitting in work, when someone harmlessly gifted me a pea and a broad bean plant.

It happened, as simple as that, the bug had bitten there was no turning back. Admittedly I was partly driven by my competitive nature, the other guys in the studio got some plants too and I knew I wanted mine to be the ones with the most pods and the biggest plants, or at least I didn't want them to be the only ones to wither and die.

On the ride home, I had all these questions for myself about what I wanted to do, would I keep them inside or outside? should I go and tactically “acquire” some plant feed from my Mom's gardening supplies? how often should I water them? See you have to understand I am a complete novice at gardening and although the answers of what to do with a pea and a broad bean plant may seem obvious to some, they were not so obvious to me, but I wanted to give it a go and I figured I was probably over thinking it all anyway.

So my first port of call was to discuss it with my Granddad. He always had a greenhouse for growing tomatoes and a vegetable patch with rhubarb and cabbage. He never proclaimed to be an expert but he enjoyed it and I suppose once I allowed my initial competitiveness to recede a bit, I realised that at the end of the day that was all that I wanted, something that would be fulfilling, enriching and ultimately enjoyable.

Over the past few years his greenhouse had gone slightly astray, I figured that it could be an endless supply of learning. With my granddads blessing I got to work. The first job was to get all of the old potatoes and most of the stones out of the clay, I don’t think I quite knew what I was getting myself in for but I went for it.

With the initial work done and out of the way, I quickly realised that, over the year or two with no use and the desicatingly dry environment that it had become, a colony of ants decided to create a home under the walkway, this would be my next job to overcome. That might be best held for another time though.